Not Your Average High School Senior Class Portraits
What Lifetouch Would Never Do
“Pick up any major fashion magazine and you’ll see a seamless grey background in fashion magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair and in museum collections too.”
Not Your Average High School Senior Class Portraits: Lifetouch is the leading school portrait photography mega business. And lets face it. Lifetouch’s school portraits are pretty terrible. I know because we have a daughter in public school and each year she has her school portraits taken by Lifetouch Portrait Studios. Why am I being so hard on them. Well for one thing its totally grin and grip photography. They basically give each child or senior about 3 minutes in front of the camera. My session are 15 minutes and I give allot of direction. Lifetouch uses a horrible lighting strategy. They use an umbrella. Why? Its easy. Pop up an umbrella with a strobe in it and anything that’s within 10 feet to 15 feet in front of that umbrella is lit up. Nothing subtle about the lighting. Not me. I use a soft box. Its more pain staking to use it and it take more time and direction with the students but its worth every ounce of effort and and time. This results in a beautiful lighting pattern. To wit: Gorgeous catchlight in the eyes and gradual transition from highlight to shadow on the skin. Lifetouch uses and umbrella and it results in flat lighting with not transition from highlight to shadow. Another benefit of using a soft light source from a soft box is that they eye color pops in my portraits. The other thing that I don’t like about Lifetouch is that they use out of date cheesy backgrounds that look like they are from the 1980’s. Instead, my studio uses a classic grey seamless. It goes with everything. All different color hair and all different types of clothing. A grey seamless background is classic and highly fashionable and never goes out of style. Grey seamless backgrounds have been used over and over in art and advertising campaigns throughout time. Pick up any major fashion magazine and you’ll see a seamless grey background in fashion magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair and museum collections too. You’ll never see a Lifetouch backdrop in museum or any major fashion magazine publication.
Last week I had the privilege of photographing 45 seniors at an Irvine private school that I’ve been working with for the last few years. A great group of high school seniors. Polite, fun and embarking on life’s journey….picking careers and college to start of their lives with. An interesting time an milestone in their lives and their families lives. They deserve the best possible portraits to memorialize this special time in their lives. What follows are few selections from the 45 high school senior portraits photographed.
